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On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 14:18:14 -0400,
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:05:38 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 10/15/15 12:49 PM, Califbill wrote:
Mr. Luddite wrote:
I watched a report on MSNBC earlier today that blew my mind.

It focused on a port in California that handles 40 percent of
our import and export shipments to and from China.

First item of surprise:

60 percent of the containers loaded with merchandise imported from
China are returned to China ... empty.

But the biggest surprise is what we are exporting *to* China in huge
qualities.

Trash.

The report showed mountains of recyclable plastic bottles, cardboard,
scrap metal and other trash items that are loaded up and set to China.
China's workers recycle it, making insulated clothing items from the
plastic bottles and cardboard and items like smartphones from the scrap
aluminum and metals, then ship them back to the USA for sale back to us.

Back in the 50's we loaded our scrap steel on scrap ships, and they towed
them to Japan for processing. I guess we are to expensive to do do any
real labor. My dad's company did a lot of the work of cutting huge holes
in the decks of ships, which was filled with scrap and then welding the
deck section back in. As well,as welding the rudder straight and the prop
shaft from turning. Seems as will be even better economically for other
countries if we keep raising minimum wages.

We always had three small "dumpster" like containers behind the boat
shop, one for iron and steel, one for aluminum, and one for
brass-bronze-copper, and these were for the busted parts of boats,
motors, scooters, trailers, et cetera, and were "saved" for the monthly
pickup by a local scrap dealer, who would take them to his yard and then
send my dad a check for whatever the agreed-upon value per pound was.
These weren't the huge dumpsters you see nowadays, but maybe a third as
big. Pistons, blocks, drive shafts, broken "pot metal", busted props not
worth repairing, fasteners, control wires stripped out of their covers,
busted wheels. In those days, the scrap metal was then loaded onto rail
cars and shipped off to smelters in the USA to be reprocessed for
materials for new parts "made in the USA." I'm sure some of it was also
shipped to foreign countries.

===

Like it or not, our environmental regs have just about put scrap
smelters out of business in this country. Many of the old ones have
turned into EPA super fund sites. Apparently steel recycles fairly
cleanly however since there are companies like Nucor that make a good
business out of it.

http://www.nucor.com/story/prologue/

Clean aluminum and copper seems to be recycled fairly efficiently too.
If you are close to the plant that actually processes the paper and
plastic, that can make sense too but down here, trucking cost makes
them much more attractive as fuel for the waste to energy incinerator
out in Buckingham.

Your observation does seem to confirm what I heard about mixed scrap
and electronics.
It is likely that they send it to a country without environmental
regulations to break it down.